UN climate report urges action on land use
Changes could help ease shortages, warming
GENEVA – Human-caused climate change is dramatically degrading the Earth’s land, and the way people use the land is making global warming worse, a new United Nations scientific report says. That creates a vicious cycle that is already making food more expensive, scarcer and less nutritious.
“The cycle is accelerating,” said NASA climate scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig, a co-author of the report. “The threat of climate change affecting people’s food on their dinner table is increasing.”
But if people change the way they eat, grow food and manage forests, it could reduce the chances of a far warmer future, scientists said.
The special report, written by more than 100 scientists and unanimously approved by diplomats from nations around the world Thursday at a meeting in Geneva, proposed possible fixes and made more dire warnings.
“The way we use land is both part of the problem and also part of the solution,” said Valerie Masson-Delmotte, a French climate scientist who co-chairs one of the panel’s groups. “Sustainable land management can help secure a future that is comfortable.”
Scientists at Thursday’s news conference emphasized both the seriousness of the problem and the need to make societal changes soon.
“We don’t want a message of despair,” said science panel official Jim Skea, a professor at Imperial College London. “We want to get across the message that every action makes a difference.”
The report said climate change already has worsened land degradation. And the future could be worse. “The stability of food supply is projected to decrease as the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events that disrupt food chains increases,” the report said.
In the worst-case scenario, food security problems change from moderate to high risk with just a few more tenths of a degree of warming from now. They go from high to “very high” risk with just another 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming.
But better farming practices have the potential to fight global warming too, reducing carbon pollution up to 18% of current emissions levels by 2050, the report said.
If people change their diets, reducing red meat and increasing plantbased foods, such as fruits, vegetables and seeds, the world can save as much as another 15% of current emissions by mid-century. It would also make people more healthy, Rosenzweig said.